Wanted
by DearlyBeloved-13
Summary: AU. In today's world, being born as a Weapon is being sentenced to a life of injustice. With Hunters on the look-out, will Soul have to succumb to the unfair treatment of Weapons? Or will he be able to meet the girl that might change it all? HIATUS sorry!


Chapter 1- It's Time to Fly

He ducked into an alley and behind a foul-smelling dumpster. Holding his breath, he listened as the various pairs of heavy boots clomped away.

"Find him!" a deep voice – the leader of that group, probably – ordered.

They ran past his hiding space, fortunately, and he slid down to the ground to catch his breath.

Luckily, Soul had been able to weave through the crowd (though very noisily, attracting a lot of unwanted attention) in time to swerve into the alley before _they_ had managed to catch sight of what direction he went. Getting chased by Weapon Hunters was definitely a cause for suspicion and automatic hate towards the one being chased (in this case him), so he felt extreme relief that no one in the crowd decided to rat him out.

_Yet._

He wiped the blood that had started to drip into his eye, letting out an irritated sigh.

He didn't have time to stop. He had been found out. Honestly though, he was supposed to be prepared for this, but he just couldn't wrap his mind around the fact that it was actually happening to him. He thought he had been careful, but he obviously got careless in the end.

He picked himself off the dirty ground, wincing as he practically felt bruises already forming. They had really managed to smack him around this time.

Keeping an ear out for the trademark sound of clomping boots, he pulled the hood of his jacket over his head, covering his bloodied face and stained-white hair as he made his way back to his temporary residence.

Knowing her, she'd want an exact explanation of what was going on, but he couldn't risk lingering for so long. He'd get them both in trouble if anyone saw him with them again.

He walked into the apartment building with his head bowed, taking the steps two at a time up to the third floor.

Making sure no one would see his face, he hurriedly pulled the key out of his pocket and unlocked the door.

_Please don't be here. Please don't be here. Please don't be here…_

He opened the door slowly, peeking in at first and then dragging the rest of himself inside. He closed the door behind him as quiet as a mouse—

"Soul, where were you?"

Damn.

He froze automatically, feeling like a little kid caught stealing cookies. Except this was way worse. Screw the cookies.

"Why are you covering your face…?"

Before he had time to stop her, she pulled his hoodie back and gasped loudly. "What happened to you!?"

"There's no time to explain," Soul said in a gruff voice. He tried to push past Whiskers. (Yes, Whiskers was her name. Yes, he also thought it was weird the first time they met. No, he doesn't know if that's her real name or not, and he doesn't care enough to ask. The less information he knew about them the better, anyway.)

She clasped onto his arm though, unknowingly digging her nails into a cut Soul had under his sleeve, making him clench his teeth.

"Don't let time control your life," the blonde lectured, dragging him to a seat. He had no other choice but to collapse on it.

"Yeah, yeah, I know, enjoy the little things in life, stop and look around every once in a while, yadda yadda yadda. I get it, really! But there's no time for that now!"

"There's always time for everything." This damn girl was so stubborn. So annoying.

Soul could feel her chocolate eyes inspecting his injuries as she patiently waited for him to start explaining. She didn't bother fetching the first aid-kit, knowing that Soul wouldn't let her help tend his injuries.

After he deduced that his chances of getting out of here without an explanation were low, he took a deep breath. "I'm leaving."

"What!? Why!?"

Soul immediately shushed her. He couldn't risk attracting anymore attention than he already had, and their walls were practically paper. He didn't want nosy neighbors interfering.

After Whiskers regained her composure, he continued. "I… I screwed up."

"Why? What do you mean?"

"I got too careless…"

"What happened?!"

He looked away in shame with a frown. "I'm just causing you guys more trouble than I'm worth."

"Soul, you're scaring me. You don't mean…"

He pursed his lips and nodded grimly.

"Oh god." She covered her mouth with her hands, tears starting to gather in her brown eyes. She pulled him into a hug, and he let her (though he didn't hug back), ignoring the pain that it caused. She began sobbing into his shoulder. "Oh my god… I never thought… I mean, it happens all the time, really, but to you… I can't believe it…"

_I can't either. _"But it's reality."

"What's going on?"

He lifted his ruby gaze and fixed it on his black-haired, now-ex-roommate that had just entered the room, having been listening from the other room. Whiskers pulled away from Soul, her face stained with tears. "Soul got found out!" she cried desperately.

"…by the Weapon Hunters."

Box (yes, her name is Box. Both girls had very peculiar names) never beat around the bush. She always got straight to point; although handy in moments where there wasn't much time to explain (like now), it also sometimes shook Soul how blunt and to-the-point she could be.

After a moment of tense silence that was only interrupted by Whiskers' sniffling, Box quietly said, "Whiskers, go to Soul's room and begin packing his things. I'll stay here and listen to what happened; I'll tell you later. You won't be able to handle listening to it first hand."

Knowing she was right, Whiskers did as she was told, hugging Soul one more time. Box got up and left, coming back just a few moments later with a first-aid kit in hand. He started to protest, but Box quickly interrupted him with an icy glare from her blue eyes. "Do you really think you can run away from here looking like you do? Think, stupid. You'll be recognized in no time like that."

He clamped his mouth shut, realizing she was right, and let her do as she wished. It seemed that in moments like these, she was the most cool-headed of the three.

"Talk," she ordered while cleaning the blood off his face.

He wanted to do the exact opposite, just to spite her, but he knew their time together was limited, so he talked. "They tricked me, the bastards. I was going to the supermarket to get what you guys asked me for when I heard this girl screaming and crying. There was no one around so I went to see if I could help her. I found her in an alley and this man was trying to…"

Box stopped cleaning his wound as Soul trailed off. She filled in the rest of the sentence in her head. "Soul, you _know_ they've been staging those things to get Weapons to come out of their hiding places."

"What the hell was I supposed to do, B!?" he exclaimed angrily. "It looked like that man was trying to rape her. It's not like I was just going to turn around and pretend I never saw that _just in case_ it was a trap. What if it was real?"

"But it wasn't."

"Shut it. It's too late now, anyway."

Box sighed through her nose, clearly annoyed, and resumed her cleaning.

"So I went to help. I punched the guy and the girl managed to crawl away. But the guy wouldn't stop beating on me, so I just defended myself. He got a beer bottle though and started coming at me with it. I guess I let my guard down or something because he managed to corner me, and I had no other choice but to… to use my blade."

"Oh, Soul…"

He took a deep breath, trying to swallow down the panic he remembered feeling when this happened. "The Hunters came out of no where. I guess the girl went to call them. They tried to capture me with that, you know, that net thingy…" He hoped she didn't notice the shaking in his voice. "I managed to get away, though I had to stab one of them in the arm, which didn't make the situation any better. They threw stuff at me when they thought I was getting too far, I guess, but I managed to lose them, and then I came here."

He left out a few of the (more gruesome) details, not wanting to completely traumatize her either. Even though she was calm and collected most of the time, he knew a lot of things still managed to disturb her.

After a while of letting the silence ring in their ears, she told Soul to take of his jacket and shirt so she could inspect the damage on his arms, chest, and back. He did so and she quietly resumed her work.

Whiskers appeared in the room again with blood-shot eyes and sniffles, holding what they had called "Soul's Emergency Backpack" when he first moved in. It carried the basics of what he would need should a situation like this one arrive.

They had been well-prepared, but even that wasn't enough.

Soul screwed up, and it could cost him his life. And if he wasn't quick and careful now, it could also cost him Box's and Whiskers'.

He smiled weakly at Whiskers, which only made more tears gather around her eyes again. He wondered what he looked like to her and pictured a weak and pathetic self having his wounds cleaned by Box with a white bandage around his head, skillfully hidden under his mop of white hair.

"Where are you planning to go?" Whiskers asked, her voice thick with the need to cry. Box also looked at him expectantly, wanting to know the answer to that question herself.

He paused and thoughtlessly said, "Death City."

Stunned silence.

Three….

Two…

One…

"_Are you crazy_!?"

"Whiskers! Lower your volume. You'll give us away." Box turned back to him seriously, fixing her blue eyes into his red ones. "Soul, think for a minute."

He did.

"And…?" he prompted.

"That's the stupidest idea you've ever had, stupid! Death City is practically the Weapon Hunters' headquarters. It's the lion's den. The core. Whatever you want to call it."

"Exactly," Soul responded, matching her forcefulness. "They'll never look for me there. No Weapon in their right mind would go there." He never thought he was completely okay in the head.

"Oh, it's that weird _Death Note_ logic again. 'This high school student is perfect in every way imaginable,'" she mocked in a high-pitched voice that came nothing close to L's, "'That MUST mean he's a psycho serial killer that goes by the name of Kira.'"

"Don't mock me."

"How are you even planning to get there? We're in New York and Death City is in Nevada," Whiskers interrupted before Soul and Box could get into a full-blown argument over now-meaningless things.

Soul ran a hand down his face with a weary sigh, being careful not to brush over the bandage over his forehead. "I don't know, Whiskers. Don't worry though. I'll manage."

Once Box finished wrapping him up, he got up and got dressed again, making sure not to mess any of the bandages up. He grabbed his pack from Whiskers' shaking hands and turned to face the two girls. "Sorry to dump this all on you, but could you gather anything left in my room and burn it?"

Box cleared her throat, running her fingers through her short, chopped, black hair (a sign that he had learned meant she was stressed through out the few months he had stayed here) and nodded.

"Why?" Whiskers whispered.

"To erase the evidence that he was ever here."

"Sorry to put you in charge of it, but there's no more time…"

"It's fine, Soul. We'll take care of it."

Nodding, he turned to leave without another word, but a pair of arms stopped him before he could even take a step, wrapping around his waist from behind.

"Don't let time control your life…" a soft, weak, fragile voice said.

He smiled sadly. "Sorry, Whiskers. I promise you that where ever I go, I'll stop and look around every once and a while, but right now I really do have to go. I can't risk getting you guys in trouble." Gently, Soul pulled away from her grasp.

"Will you at least visit us or write to us…?"

"Whiskers, you know he can't do that…"

He swallowed heavily and then awkwardly looked away from them. He wasn't any good at goodbyes. "Well, uh, thanks for, you know, everything." He turned.

"Soul."

"…B?" That was what he called her when calling her 'Box' was just too weird.

She grabbed Whiskers' hand and squeezed it, giving and gaining strength for each other. Though he'd never admit it out loud, he loved the relationship those two had. They totally depended on each other, like it was so normal to be so completely unified with another person. He often wondered if he'd ever have that kind of relationship with someone. He doubted it though, his Weapon genes automatically causing many people to hate him before even getting to know him. (Like a certain someone that--)

_(Don't even go there now.)_

She looked at Soul straight in the eye, and he could almost feel as her blue gaze pierced right through him. "Don't get caught."

He blinked, caught off guard with the statement, but then allowed his expression to melt into a smirk. "That's the plan."

Soul waved; they waved; and he left.

He walked out of the building with his hood shadowing his face. The sky bled together into a mixture of orange and red as the sun began to set. It was almost like a stroke of luck that it would be dark soon, since it was way easier to sneak around then.

Making sure to keep his guard up and keep an ear out of the clomps of heavy boots, he moved through the shadows and began his long trek to his next destination.

Death City.

x.X.x

_AN- And that's the beginning to this story. :D_

_I don't really know where I'm going with this, but, yeah… I'll try to update as soon as I can. ^^; Please review! 8D Oh, and __**no, this is not a SoulxOC story. It's (going to be) a SoulxMaka story**__, thank you very much. : )  
(More characters coming in soon!)_

_Also, I'm sorry if it's too rushed or if there are any obvious grammatical mistakes. It is now two in the morning and I am too tired to go back and check, but I really want to post this right now. ^^;_

Disclaimer: I don't own Soul Eater. I only own the plot, Box, and Whiskers. Please don't use them in any way, shape, or form without my permission.

_Random fact: Box and Whiskers were named after a math problem we went over in class. I heard what it was called (box and whiskers) and I thought, "Those are awesome names!" Thus, Box and Whiskers were born. 8D_


End file.
